News: South Florida startup to star in Super Bowl lineup

.CO Internet, the Miami company behind the fast-growing .CO domain name, will be featured in a 2013 Super Bowl commercial, through a partnership with Go Daddy, the leading Web hosting and domain name provider, the companies said Wednesday.

The 30-second ad is set to feature Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick. The story will revolve around how easy it is to create your own business online and use the Internet to grow it quickly. “We get to share our message with more than a hundred million people,” said Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet (pictured). “We’re going to inspire people to seize the moment – to actually launch their big ideas online.” The commercial is being shot in Los Angeles in early January and was developed by Deutsch. Costs were not disclosed.

This will be the third year for the Go Daddy-.CO partnership. Last year’s “Body Paint” Super Bowl ad drove significant traffic, the companies said. In 2011, comedienne Joan Rivers was revealed as the “surprise” new Go Daddy .CO Girl, triggering a 466 percent increase in domain name registrations within 15 minutes of airing. Now there are more than 1.4 million .CO domain names.

It's been a busy fall for .CO Internet. Late last month, the company announced it was launching a free membership program, called i.go.co, where .CO sites could get discounts to events such as Startup Weekends, find educational resources, read about other .CO startup and get other perks. The official launch will be during South by Southwest, but the company is already accepting signups.